Association of travel time with mental health service use in primary health care according to contact type — a register-based study in Kainuu, Finland

Table 4 Negative binomial regression of the number of contacts to health centre for different distances

	In-person visits
Travel time category (minutes)	Crude IRR	95% CI	Adjusted IRR^a	95% CI
≤ 15.0	1	-	1	-
15.1–30.0	0,86	0,74–1,00	0,91	0,79–1,04
> 30.0	0,63	0,48–0,81	0,64	0,50–0,81
	Remote contacts
Travel time category (minutes)	Crude IRR	95% CI	Adjusted IRR^a	95% CI
≤ 15.0	1		1
15.1–30.0	0,71	0,59–0,84	0,97	0,83–1,14
> 30.0	0,89	0,66–1,20	1,20	0,92–1,57
	Home visits
Travel time category (minutes)	Crude IRR	95% CI	Adjusted IRR^a	95% CI
≤ 15.0	1	-	1	-
15.1–30.0	0,39	0,25–0,61	0,33	0,22–0,51
> 30.0	0,32	0,15–0,70	0,17	0,08–0,36

IRR: incidence rate ratio; 95% CI: 95% confidence interval
^aAdjusted for gender, age, having mental health-related diseases and the nearest health centre
In-person visits: service in doctor’s or health care personnel’s office
Remote contacts: service via phone, e-mail, internet, text message, video, letter or fax
Home visits: services in patients’ place of residence
The population (N = 7643) includes patients with primary health care mental health service use from the Finnish care register for health care in the Kainuu region from 2015–2019 (deceased patients are excluded)

ISSN: 1472-6963